


Our Only Hope

by mimikeyu



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Gen, Mastermind Hinata Hajime, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 14:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7511320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimikeyu/pseuds/mimikeyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monokuma is gone.  Hajime Hinata is dead.  The stage is set for the end to the island life of mutual killing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Only Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to write more of Seven Days but I ended up wanting to write a sort of parallel to Infernal Devices just because I'm the absolute worst. Why am I hurting them like this - they should just be happy?!

“Hajime... i-is it true?”

Kazuichi's quiet words rang out across the courtroom as Hajime slumped down, hiding his face in his hands. There was a sudden chill in the air as a long silence filled the room and the surviving students watched on. Monokuma had fallen from his own stand and now lay dead on the stone floor.

Fuyuhiko, Sonia, and Akane exchanged looks, and then gazed over to Hajime. Kazuichi couldn't take his eyes off of the boy he'd thought of as his closest friend since coming to Jabberwock Island. Hajime had started to tremble, his shoulders shaking a little as the silence dragged on. But then...

“Heh...”

It was a chuckle to begin with. A small chuckle. But then, Hajime started to laugh. Not the good-natured laugh, or awkward chuckle Kazuichi had heard in their time together over the past few weeks – no... This was something completely new, and wrong, and terrifying.

“H-Hajime!” Sonia cried, raising an arm in protest. “Say something at once!”

“Oh, sure thing!”

His demeanour had changed in an instant, and he stood up straight now, arms folded across his chest. He was smiling, but there was no humour or kindness in it. No, it was clear to see from the change in his eyes – that same, swirling emptiness Nagito's had displayed during the first Class Trial.

“H-Hajime...”

“Kazuichi!” Hajime beamed. “Surprised?”

“You better start talkin'!” Akane snapped, cracking her knuckles. Hajime looked at her, blankly.

“What is there to say?” he frowned. “We're all here. It's the final round!”

“But it was you that got us all here!” Fuyuhiko roared. “If it hadn't been for you and Chiaki we'd never have even got here!”

“Well, obviously!” Hajime groaned, rolling his eyes. He took a moment to loosen his tie. “It wouldn't have been any fun if I'd let _everyone_ die right away, would it? I wanted to see who'd last til the end, y'know? To be honest, I'm surprised some of you are here. Kazuichi, I'm looking at you.”

“I-”

“Oh, don't worry – I wouldn't have actually let you die,” Hajime said, shrugging his shoulders. “You're too funny when you're scared. I'd have been _way_ more bored if you weren't around.”

“Y-you can't just say stuff like that!” Kazuichi moaned, grasping onto the stand in front of him. “We were friends!”

“Soul friends, Kazuichi!” Hajime said, smiling again. “Aren't we anymore? I mean, I love you, you know.”

The world came to a stop, and Kazuichi felt his breath catch in his throat as Hajime's words tore through him like a bullet. His eyes widened, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the boy in the stand opposite him. Hajime's smile didn't falter, though his eyes had softened – the maddening darkness replaced with something else, something raw and vulnerable.

“You love me too, don't you, Kazuichi?” he said, softly. Kazuichi felt himself trembling as the shock ran through him like a current.

“D-don't ask me that,” he croaked. His voice felt raw in his throat.

“C'mon, Kazuichi,” Hajime said, teasingly. “I might let you live if you tell me the truth!”

“L-live?!”

“Well, yeah!” laughed Hajime. “I can't let you _all_ live now we're here!” He threw his arms wide, gesturing the trial ground.

“Hajime, I do not understand!” Sonia cried. “What is all of this? How could this all be you?”

“Well, it wasn't _all_ me!” Hajime said, waving a vague hand gesture. “Haven't you all figured it out by now?”

“Junko Enoshima,” spat Fuyuhiko, narrowing his eyes at Hajime. “Monokuma said it was that fucking bitch that started all of this.”

Hajime beamed again. “That's right! But we can't go giving her all the credit, right? After all, if it weren't for all of us here, this killing game would never have happened! Of course, I wasn't quite expecting Nagito or Chiaki to be quite as interfering as they turned out to be...” His face fell grim. “I won't lie – it hurt me that Chiaki had to die.”

“She didn't _have_ to die!” Akane roared. “No-one _had_ to die! What the hell are you tryin' to pull here, Hajime?!”

“No, that's wrong,” Hajime said, softly. His eyes seemed to have misted over, and he seemed to be staring off into space as he spoke. “You know what she was.”

“The traitor,” Fuyuhiko murmured.

“The Future Foundation's agent,” Sonia said, sadly.

“So what?” Kazuichi snapped, hammering his fist down on the stand in front of him. The world had came back into motion now, and the past minute or so had hit him in one surge of emotion. “So what she was with the Future Foundation? She was as much a prisoner here as we were!”

Hajime turned his gaze back to him and gave him a sympathetic smile.

“You're all so _literal_ ,” he sighed, still smiling. “No, no, no, it's way more boring than that! Who cares if she was a traitor or the Future Foundation's agent? No, that wasn't why she had to die.”

“Tell us why then!” Fuyuhiko snarled.

“She had to die because she was my friend!”

Hajime's words echoed through the trial ground, hanging in the air for several long moments.

“Sh-she was your friend?” Kazuichi managed to stammer out, eventually. “What's that got to do with it?”

“Jeez, did any of you even bother to listen to Nagito while he was alive?” Hajime asked, folding his arms again. “Of course, he had the completely wrong idea. He spent all that time trying to bring hope, but all he was doing was making it easier for me. I mean, I have to admit, I might have made it a little too easy for him to interfere, but that's all just part of the game, right?”

“Game? H-Hajime, this isn't a game! This is real life!”

“Who says?!” Hajime retorted, angrily. He glared round at them, fists clenched in white-knuckled anger. “Who says what's real and what's not anymore? Huh?!”

“Why did you do this to us, Hajime?”

Kazuichi hadn't intended for his words to come out so softly. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to scream in Hajime's face and for Hajime to convince him it was just another big joke. But Kazuichi knew more than most how betrayal felt. He just felt numb – his head reeling between disbelief and denial.

Even then, however, Hajime's reply still felt like a bullet to the heart.

“Because I needed to.”

His words were met with silence. What could that possibly mean? Finally, Fuyuhiko was the one to break the silence.

“Y-you 'needed' to?”

Hajime nodded. He had folded his arms across his chest, and he didn't seem particularly angry now. No, even though that intense despair was still clear to see in his eyes, there was something less aggressive about him now. Part of Kazuichi's mind registered it was simply that Hajime knew he had no need to be – he had already beaten them.

“I needed to know...” he said. “I needed to know if I was worthy of being an Ultimate.”

“Wh-what?!”

“Well, I think this whole killing game's pretty much answered my question,” he said with a shrug. “I'm not just worthy – I'm fully entitled to it!”

“Entitled to...”

“Entitled to a title,” Hajime said. “I started on this island as a useless, untalented Reserve Course student. But much like Nagito thought, each Class Trial brought us closer and closer to this point right here, right now. Each death was a stepping stone to carry hope, and to carry despair. And to carry me to the answer. I might have played a big part behind the scenes, and heck, I played a fair part during the Trials too, but that was mostly for my own entertainment than anything else.

“But here we are now – the five of us.” He raised his arm and pointed from one face to the next. “Sonia Nevermind, the Ultimate Princess. Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, the Ultimate Yakuza. Akane Owari, the Ultimate Gymnast.” His pointing finger lingered over Kazuichi for a moment longer. “Kazuichi Souda, the Ultimate Mechanic... and Hajime Hinata.” Some sort of realisation seemed to spark in his mind and he shook his head, smiling wickedly. “No, no, no, not Hajime Hinata. Not anymore. Hajime Hinata is a Reserve Course failure. I need a name fitting of the Ultimate Hope.”

“The Ultimate... Hope?” Akane echoed.

“That's right!” he smirked. “And what name more fitting than the founder of Hope's Peak Academy?”

He raised a hand in a mock wave and he gave a sharp, victorious laugh.

“Hajime, stop this!” Kazuichi begged. “Just... just _stop!_ ”

“Oh, Kazuichi, Kazuichi, Kazuichi,” the Ultimate Hope cooed, patronisingly waggling a finger at him. “Weren't you listening to what I said? Hajime Hinata is dead. Hajime Hinata has never existed! My name... is Izuru Kamukura.”

 


End file.
